WPA's humanitarian actions for Ukrainian psychiatrists and psychiatric patients
Authors: Danuta Wasserman, Helen Herrman, Afzal Javed, Roger M.K. Ng, Peter Falkai, Jerzy Samochowiec, Jonas Eberhard, Norman Sartorius
Journal: World Psychiatry (2023)

In May 2020, the WPA established an Ad­visory Committee for Responses to Emergencies (ACRE), by bringing together the leaders of the larger Member Societies to provide practical and concrete aid to Member Societies in need. The group aimed at fostering education, information collection, and the development of local, national and international strategies to cope with the mental health consequences of emergencies. The aid was given in many parts of the world, including Asia, America and other regions1-4. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and due to the grave concerns about the well-being of Ukrainian people, particularly psychiatric patients and staff, the ACRE set up a sub-committee, chaired by the WPA President-Elect, to plan and implement support to Ukrainian psychiatrists and the Ukrainian Psychiatric Associations by actively providing humanitarian and medical aid through WPA Member Societies5. Presently, there are approximately 6.6 million Ukrainian people displaced within the country, and almost equal numbers of refugees in Europe, some of them reaching other continents6. A close collaboration was established between the WPA and the leadership of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) (President: P. Falkai; President-Elect: G. Dom; Secretary General: J. Beezhold) as well as the EPA Council of National Psy­chiatric Associations (Chair: J. Samochowiec)7. The war in Ukraine affects both the phys­ical and mental health of Ukrainian peo­­ple. Supporting mental health of the popula­tion as well as providing support for persons with mental ill health is key. Therefore, one of the main goals of the ACRE sub-committee was to establish a WPA online trauma resource center, under the leadership of R. Ng (Interim WPA Secretary General and WPA Secretary for Education). The EPA, whose national psychiatric as­sociations are also Member Societies of the WPA, made available a repository of literature on treatment of people with trauma. Furthermore, a series of webinars, Help for Helpers, specially designed for people work­ing in war conditions, was created by men­tal health professionals. The goal was to provide knowledge to the public on how to help traumatized family members, friends and neighbors. The WPA online trauma resource cen­ter was established as a central point to collect and provide evidence-based materials and resources in Ukrainian, Russian and other languages, to help psychiatrists and other individuals to respond to the mental health challenges that people from Ukraine are currently facing. In creating this resource center, the WPA and its Scientific Sections established collaborations with a number of professional organizations in addition to the EPA, including the European College of Neuropsycho­pharmacology (ECNP)8 and Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)9, 10, to bring together relevant self-help materials to support those in need. The WPA educational trauma resource center can be visited at www.wpanet.org/ukraine-resources. In this center, readers are provided with a one-stop station where they can find a quick overview of the existing educational materials offered by the various organizations. They can then click on the relevant links and be re-directed to the educational materials in the webpages of the organizations. The materials include written guidelines, resource packages, videos, and webinars for mental health professionals on delivering psychological sup­­-port and crisis intervention to refugees and displaced people. There are also self-help online materials for war victims, refugees, and their caregivers. Supplementing the online resources in the trauma resource center, the WPA website also hosts an educational portal in which there are over 20 free webinars and learning modules covering a diverse range of mental health topics, that can be readily accessed by mental health professionals supporting war victims, refugees, and displaced persons. Finally, there is a list of volunteer organizations in Europe that provide free online consultations and support to Ukrainian people in need. The WPA educational trauma resource center is updated as we receive more and new information. If you wish to contribute any relevant resources developed by your own organization, please contact the WPA Secretariat ([email protected]). WPA Member Societies have also provided direct help to Ukraine. Moreover, they have helped refugees in the receiving countries with psychiatric aid. Specialized psychiatric services for women and children with a focus on Ukrainian families have been established. Many Member Societies have appealed to numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as to pharmaceutical companies, to increase their awareness of psychiatric patients' needs in Ukraine, including their demand for psychotropic drugs. Almost all European national psychiatric societies have undertaken numerous relevant activities11, 12. The EPA and the Polish Psychiatric Association regularly invite the WPA to attend their meetings with the two Ukrainian Psychiatric Associations, as well as with the neighboring European countries' psychiatric associations, to continually discuss the needs regarding humanitarian and medical aid in Ukraine. The transfer to Ukraine of several medical supplies, including psy­chotropic drugs, was provided by the cen­tral office of Lundbeck in Europe, stimulated by the WPA. A series of medication transports to Ukrainian hospitals, based on the lists provided by the Ukrainian Psychiatric Associations, were organized by the local Lundbeck subsidiary. The primary needs are for antipsychotic medications in the form of short-acting intramuscular injections and long-acting injections. The Polish Psychiatric Association pur­chased electric generators and delivered them to Lviv, to be then transferred to other psychiatric hospitals in Ukraine, including Odessa, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizzhia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. The transfer of ambulances for community psychiatry in Lviv region is on the way. Moreover, the Association sent basic equip­ment, sleeping mats, bedding, mattresses, backpacks, clean­ing products, personal hy­giene products, tools for renovation and con­struction, as well as psychiatric medicat­ions through the Polish Agency for Materials and Strategic Reserves. The other main goal of the WPA ACRE sub-committee is to offer economic support through donations from WPA Member Societies. The EPA's Fund for Ukraine supports Ukrainian psychiatric units and patients for the purchase of medications, equipment and other needed materials. The WPA plans to use its own fund to help psychiatrists in Ukraine in reconstructing their services during and after the war. Generous donations have been made by the American Psychiatric Association, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, the Mexican Psychiatric Association; the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics; the Croatian Psychiatric Association, the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, the Finnish Psychiatric Association, the Italian Psychiatric Association, the French Psychiatric Associations, and the Polish Psychiatric Association. Donations have also come from individual psychiatrists around the world. If you wish to donate to the WPA fund for this purpose, you can do this using the link www.wpanet.org/post/call-for-donations-to-supply-medications-for-mentally-ill-patients-in-ukraine.